This invention relates generally to an information display system capable of presenting video pictures and other forms of information on a display screen constituted by a lamp matrix board, and more particularly to a mobile system of this type in which the matrix board is composed of foldable sections which may be erected at any desired site.
Many modern sport stadiums and entertainment arenas are designed to accommodate enormous audiences, ranging from 20,000 to as high as 70,000 spectators and more. Because the game or show being observed by the large audience is centered in a playing field or performing stage surrounded by stands or other seating arrangements, the typical spectator has only a general view of the performance and is quite distant from the scene of the activity.
In some sports and entertainment facilities, there are now installed large display screens at elevated positions where they may be conveniently viewed by the audience. These screens serve not only to present standard sports scoreboard data, but also instant replays as well as slow motion and close-ups. Thus the audience, which has a direct but distant view of the activity, and to that extent a sense of involvement and participation in the game or entertainment, is at the same time able to pick up significant details which are normally not perceptible. Screen sizes for this purpose may be as great as 30 by 40 feet.
The nature of the information display system depends on the prevailing lighting conditions. In an indoor arena in which the field or stage is illuminated by artificial light that is concentrated on the area of activity, use is generally made of a large-scale projection television system having a picture capability fully compatible with standard broadcast and closed-circuit video signals. This T-V projection screen is usually installed above the performing area at a position where the ambient light level is low and therefore does not wash out the screen presentation.
But a projection television information display system is unsuitable under daylight or outdoor lighting conditions where the ambient light level is high. To meet the requirements for an outdoor display screen viewable by a large audience, lamp display matrices have been developed formed by a large array of standard incandescent lamps that are selectively operated by a computer to create alpha-numeric information or to produce black and white video images whose picture elements are defined by the array of bulbs.
One commercially-available lamp matrix screen information display system is that manufactured and sold under the trademark "Telescreen" by Conrac Corporation. The Conrac screen makes use of a solid matrix of lamps, each of which is individually controlled by a computer for presenting video images derived from tape, film or live camera. Similar systems are supplied by Stewart Warner. This type of screen, in which the incandescent bulbs each produce a whitish light of a controllable intensity, will reproduce the gray shade scale of black-and-white broadcast television. In a sports stadium, a Conrac Telescreen permits the viewer to see close-ups of field actions, instant replays, slow motion, still and animated pictures, and it can also present to the spectators at the stadium an event taking place in a remote location.
Thus with a Telescreen, every spectator in the stadium, regardless of his line-of-sight or distance from the scene of activity, can now watch the field actions and replay with advantages comparable to those of intimate home TV viewing coupled with the satisfaction of being present at and seeing the actual event.
The use of a lamp matrix display screen system has heretofore been strictly limited to established sports and entertainment facilities designed for huge audiences, for these facilities can usually afford a permanent installation of this type. But many important professional and collegiate events take place in the open field with no fixed spectator seating facilities or in arenas of modest size for which the cost of a permanent installation is virtually out of the question.
Thus in a golf classic, the only way a spectator who comes to the golf course to see players engaging in competition can see the event is by accompanying the players from hole to hole. Where the crowd of spectators is large, this creates a problem; for only a few are then in a position to clearly see the action. On those occasions where the game is televised and the players are viewed by live video cameras, then the T-V viewers have a far better picture of the game than those spectators who are present at the playing site. But only a few golf competitions are televised, and the typical spectator at such an event does not have the benefit of a lamp matrix display screen system.
Similarly, there are many other sports events where the spectator's view of the action depends on where he sits--if the event lends itself to seating--or on how fast he can walk or how quickly he can strain his neck to catch the action. Thus many soccer, tennis, racing and other competitive events of great public interest are seen by spectators who, for lack of a screen display system, obtain only a partial and often unsatisfactory view of the action.